


Like a Coming of Age

by littledaybreaker



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 19:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4889470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littledaybreaker/pseuds/littledaybreaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He can’t pinpoint exactly when it changed, he just knows that it did. That one day he realises it: he’s not broken, he’s just made differently. Of course. Every other aspect of himself is just slightly different from everyone else, so why not this, too?"</p><p>In which Connor McDavid figures out who he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Coming of Age

**Author's Note:**

> I had conceived of this idea some time ago and it has taken on so many different lives since then that I can barely remember what I had initially wanted out of this story. "THIS ISN'T EVEN MY FINAL FORM" and all. I had also initially intended to end this about 1000 words before I actually did, but I needed some sort of more satisfying resolution. I am not sure I am 100% happy with it as it stands, but I didn't want it to sit in my documents and become this rambling epic that I continued to add onto forever and ever, so here it is.
> 
> Title and epigraph are from Foster the People's "Coming of Age".
> 
> PS: I am a lifelong Oilers fan, so any Oilers ribbing here is strictly affectionate. Although those orange jerseys are, truly, a nightmare. ;)

_When my fear pulls me out to sea and the stars are hidden by my pride and my enemies, I seem to hurt the people that care the most._  
_Just like an animal, I protect my pride when I'm too bruised to fight, and even when I'm wrong I tend to think I'm right._  
_But I'm bored of the game and too tired to rage._  
_It feels like, feels like it's coming, it's like a coming of age._

 

 

From the moment they meet, Connor and Dylan are basically inseparable. 

it’s not always like that, not for Connor, at least. Usually, he puts himself at a distance from other people. Not because he thinks he’s too good for them—despite what other guys might think—but because other people scare him, and he’s got enough on his shoulders without having to cope with his crippling social anxiety on top of everything else.

But Dylan’s different. He’s quiet and reserved, like Connor, but without all of Connor’s intensity. “Let’s just roll with it,” he says about everything from a bad loss to making off day plans, refusing to give in to Connor’s tightly set jaw and worried protestations, and Connor craves Dylan’s company so much that roll with it is exactly what he does.

Within days of Dylan’s arrival in Erie they’re perfectly synced line partners and instant best friends, spending almost all of their free time together. For Connor, who spends so much time in his own head that he forgets how to talk to others, spending time with Dylan is somehow the easiest thing in the world. They can talk about anything, not just hockey, and they do. They talk about their families, about books, about movies, about the future. They don’t talk about girls, not the way the other guys do, but Connor doesn’t think too much about that—not at first, anyway. Girls have never exactly been on his radar. He’s been too busy thinking about hockey, too busy pouring himself into hockey and school and the other actually important things in life. He’s always figured it would come in time, when he’s not so busy, but he’s never been able to help feeling kind of broken when the other guys talk about girls, about sex and feelings, because he’s never felt anything even remotely close to that. 

Until now. 

He can’t pinpoint exactly when it changed, he just knows that it did. That one day he realises it: he’s not broken, he’s just made differently. Of course. Every other aspect of himself is just slightly different from everyone else, so why not this, too? While all his friends are talking about girls, thinking about girls, he’s, well, he’s thinking about his friends. About _Dylan_ , specifically. 

“I think,” he says carefully to Bob one night, sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of soup and his science textbook open beside him, “I think I might be gay.”  
Bob is sitting across from him with his own bowl of soup and a book, and he looks up with a slightly amused expression on his face. “Oh yeah?”  
“Uh huh.” Connor writes down an answer, takes a mouthful of soup, brow furrowed. “I’m not sure, I just think maybe.”  
“Well,” says Bob, “I think you’re the best 16 year old boy I’ve ever known and I love you no matter what, and I’m sure Stephanie and your mom and your dad all agree with me. I don’t care if you’re straight or gay or something in between, and I don’t think anyone else who knows you and loves you does, either. I just want you to be the best and happiest Connor you can be, okay?”  
Connor nods and offers a little half-smile, doodling in the margins of his book. “I love you, Bob,” he says without looking up. Bob reaches over and pats his hand, warm and reassuring. “If you need anything, you tell me, okay? I’m here for you.”  
“Thank you,” Connor says softly, and decides in that moment that he’d rather spoon his own eyeballs out than ever speak of this again.

Which he doesn’t, for the rest of the season, anyway. His personal life is a closely guarded secret—he’s a kid, after all—and it’s not hard for him to project the image of being a person who does nothing but eat, sleep and breathe hockey because he is a person who does nothing but eat, sleep and breathe hockey. He lets his anxiety about coming out recede even as his certainty about his orientation grows. He doesn’t have to tell anyone he doesn’t want to. He is, for the moment, completely and totally safe. 

Dylan spends the second of the summer with Connor and his parents, delighting his parents with his manners and his stories, making friends with all of Connor’s friends at the “welcome back” party, and stirring up feelings both new and familiar in Connor when he takes his shirt off at the pool. 

As a treat for the weekend, Connor’s parents drive them down to Toronto and let them stay in their own room. They spend most of their time hanging out at the pool, ordering room service, and generally pretending to be adults. They’re sprawled out on one bed of the two with some dumb movie on the tv, their legs touching, when Dylan looks at Connor and says, “have you ever kissed a girl?”  
Connor shakes his head no, and Dylan nods. “Me either.”  
“I—“ Connor begins, making a split second decision to test the waters, heart pounding hard. His voice sounds shaky when he says, “I think I’m more interested in kissing guys.”  
Dylan’s eyes widen. “Really?”  
“I uh—“ Connor starts to pull away, he feels like he’s going to throw up. “Yeah.”  
“Oh.” Dylan closes his eyes for a little longer than a blink, opens them. “Really?”  
“I said yeah.” He’s going to throw up if Dylan keeps asking him this, he’s going to, he needs to get out of here…  
“Oh.” For a moment there’s only the sound of Dylan’s breathing, and then he says, “Me too.”  
Connor rolls over and stares at him. Dylan stares back. Of all of the strange alignments of the universe that led Dylan to him, this is by far Connor’s strongest proof that there very well might be a God. He wants to make a move, knows exactly what to do, but for some reason he’s frozen.  
Dylan, of course, knows exactly what to do. He cups one of Connor’s cheeks and leans forward, bringing him closer and closer until their lips touch. 

There’s none of the expected fireworks, no burst of excitement, none of the things Connor expects. But there is a dawning of realization: this is what he’s supposed to be doing and this is who he’s supposed to be doing it with. He rolls to deepen the kiss, wrapping his arm around Dylan’s waist, and Dylan responds by humming, letting Connor roll on top of him. 

They don’t do anything more than kiss, not that night, anyway, but they wake up in the morning holding hands and it feels like that’s exactly where they’re supposed to be. They don’t really talk about what it makes them, but when they drop Dylan off on Monday morning, he leans over and kisses Connor’s cheek while their parents are talking and whispers in his ear, “Don’t date anyone else.”  
“I won’t,” Connor promises, flushing red, touching his cheek where Dylan’s lips just were. “Never ever.”  
Dylan waves and hops out of the car, disappearing into the house. 

When the season starts again, Connor spends several days sick with anxiety about what it’s going to mean, no matter how many times Dylan reassures him that nothing will change. Because even if nothing changes between them—it’s draft year. _Everything_ is going to change. 

For the first month or so, everything is fine, it’s totally normal. They play hockey, they hang out with the team, they do their homework. When they’re alone, they hold hands. They kiss. Sometimes, late at night in the dark they fumble around with touching each other, ending up panting and shaking and unable to stop kissing one another. 

The last half of the season is a roller coaster, to put it mildly. Connor doesn’t like roller coasters—not real ones, and definitely not theoretical ones. It starts when Connor breaks his hand. He hates to fight—doesn’t see a point in it—but when someone says things like what Bryson says, when people are picking on you like that, there isn’t much of a choice. He breaks his hand and spends six weeks sitting on the bench chomping at the bit to get back, refusing to comment on the details of the fight no matter how much people press. Then comes World Juniors—Connor makes the team, Dylan doesn’t. Connor spends a lot of time worrying about that, but Dylan, as Dylan does, just rolls with it. When he can he sits with Connor’s parents in a McDavid jersey and cheers louder than anyone. It’s the first time that Connor realises that the whole world is watching him, that people are paying attention, and he doesn’t like it. Doesn’t like to think about what they might dig up…what they might damage. 

A few comments are made about Dylan’s McDavid jersey, most of them about their “bromance”—that much makes Connor smirk a little. If they only knew…but at the same time, it makes him feel edgy. He’s not some anonymous teenage boy who can play hockey like it’s in his DNA, like he was born to do it. He’s not just Connor. Suddenly he is Connor McDavid, The Commodity. Saviour of some struggling team. The whole world is watching him, and he just wants them to stop. 

Connor turns 18 a week after he comes back from the World Juniors. It’s a day off but they have a game the next day, so he has his teammates over for cupcakes and pizza and they watch _Star Wars_. Dylan spends the night. When everyone else is gone, he gives Connor a leather cuff bracelet with their initials stamped on the inside, and Connor tries not to cry when he hugs Dylan close. 

They lose their virginity to each other that night. Connor’s been nervous about it for months, doing research that only serves to scare him more, turning Dylan down at the last second five times before they finally get it right. Once he’s inside of Dylan, though, he knows it’s exactly where he’s supposed to be, knows it’s exactly what he’s supposed to be doing, and he’s not even sure what he was afraid of. 

He holds Dylan close after, carding his fingers through his hair, studying his sleeping face. He’s certain no one has ever felt the way he does about Dylan about any other person, surely not as intensely. 

By the time April and the draft lottery come, all Connor can do is pray that they won’t be too far from each other. Part of him was hoping that this day would never come—that somehow, being drafted would pass them by, leave them to stay together forever. He’s halfway planning it—they’ll go to the same college, play together there, see what happens after—completely willing to give up on his dreams if it means that he can be with Dylan. 

If the he looks disappointed at the lottery it’s not because he has anything against the city of Edmonton or the hockey organization that plays there—it’s because it all feels so final then. In just two and a half months, he’s going to have to say goodbye to Dylan, maybe for the last time. 

They make the most of those last two months, on FaceTime every night before school ends and then switching back and forth between houses when it does. After some pleading, their parents let them spend the weekend in Niagara Falls by themselves. It’s a welcome break from the constant cameras and interviews and people in their faces they’ve had to endure since the lottery, and Connor soaks up every moment. They hold hands, they kiss, they dress up and eat at fancy restaurants. They make love every night. They talk about the future—how scared they are, but hopeful, too. They’ll get married one day, Dylan promises. They’ll get married and have kids. Two boys and a girl, he promises. It all sounds so good to Connor that he can’t help but believe him. 

Everything else sneaks up on them faster than Connor could even imagine, leaving his head spinning. There’s not a lot of time for each other during the skills assessments and media days that precede the draft lottery, but somehow they find time to sneak away from the rest of the guys and the slightly-forced sense of camaraderie (Connor isn’t sure if it’s his lack of social skills or the fact that it’s stupid that makes him feel like that—they were rivals for years and they’re going to be rivals for years to come, so why bother pretending to be friends with people you are not friends with? It’s not that he dislikes them, of course. He just doesn’t want to be their best friend for the space of the weekend), just to be in each other’s company. 

“Let’s get married,” Connor says, curled up in Dylan’s arms the night before the draft. Dylan smiles against Connor’s hair—he can feel it—and shakes his head. “You’re silly,” he says, and Connor smiles down at his hands. “I’m serious. Let’s go. I hear it’s legal in like, Vermont or something.”  
“That’s a long way away,” Dylan points out, “we’re in Florida.”  
Connor rolls his eyes in the way he does when he’s being affectionately long-suffering. “That’s the point,” he says.  
“Maybe later, I’m comfortable,” Dylan says by way of dismissal, and then it gets quiet in the space of their shared hotel room for a long moment before he adds, “Hey.”  
Connor lifts his head. “Hey.”  
“Even when we’re far apart, nothing’s going to change between us.”  
“Do you promise?” Connor’s eyes are imploring. “You have to promise.”  
Dylan kisses him deeply, more deeply than they’ve ever kissed before, his hands tangled up in Connor’s hair. When they’re out of breath, he pulls back and says, “I promise. In five years, in ten years, it’s going to be different. We can come out, we can get married, we can have all the things we talked about cause we’re not going to let something like a couple thousand kilometres get in our way, right?”  
Connor tucks his head into Dylan’s shoulder and closes his eyes. “Yeah,” he agrees, “exactly.” 

The next day Connor is up long before Dylan, taking his time to get ready and watch the sun rise from the balcony, taking deep breaths and trying not to throw up. He’s not ready for any of this. He’s never going to ever be ready for any of this. There’s a part of him that wishes it could be different. That he didn’t have the burden of responsibility of repairing a hockey franchise at 18 years old, that he didn’t have to worry about everything all the time, and that he hadn’t been born the way he was, destined to love people he’s not supposed to. 

He drinks a cup of coffee, throws it up, and then pads down to his parents’ hotel room. 

“I think I have to break up with Dylan,” he tells his half-awake, robe-clad, bleary-eyed mother, and then promptly bursts into tears, collapsing into her arms.  
“Back up,” she says, petting Connor’s hair. “Start from the beginning.”  
Once he’s caught his breath, all the words start tumbling from his mouth. He tells her about how scary it is that everyone is watching them now, how they’re going to be so far apart now, how he already has enough stress on his shoulders without having to worry about Dylan on top of it all.  
His mom holds him close to her chest until he’s done, and says “Well, I think you’ve got a lot going on, and I think you know in your heart what the right thing to do is. You can’t let all of this hockey stuff cause you to lose who you are, sweetheart.”  
He nods, taking a couple of deep breaths. After the draft, he resolves to himself. After the draft he’ll make his final decision. 

Dylan is awake when he gets back up to his own room, smiling at him from the living room where he’s sitting on the floor with his feet tucked up under him, eating dry Cheerios by the handful. “Were you with your mom and dad?”  
Connor nods, sitting down on the floor next to him and snagging a Cheerio. “I can’t believe you eat these without milk.”  
Dylan shrugs, smiles. “Are you nervous?” he asks, eyes searching Connor’s face, which Connor is trying to keep intentionally blank. He shakes his head.  
“Liar,” Dylan says, leaning over to kiss his cheek. “I’m going to see my parents. See you at the draft?”  
Connor ignores the sick feeling in his stomach, nods. “See you at the draft,” he agrees.  
Dylan rises, leaving the box of Cheerios, and goes to the door. Connor watches him, biting his lower lip. When Dylan reaches the door, he turns to look at Connor, a long, long look. “I love you,” he says, and then leaves before Connor has time to say it back. 

Connor moves through the draft as though he’s playing a part in a movie. He waves enthusiastically at Dylan and Dylan waves enthusiastically back. A million billion people see it on TV. He dons that awful orange sweater and squint-smiles under the blinding stage lights through fifty million photos. He watches Dylan get drafted. They squint-smile through fifty million more photos. 

It’s late when they’re finally done with the fanfare, even if it’s going to start all over again tomorrow. Dylan catches Connor’s arm as they walk back to the rooms, kisses him on the cheek, and says “I’m gonna stay with my mom and dad tonight, is that okay?”  
It blindsides Connor, and he swallows hard. “See you tomorrow?” he asks.  
“See you tomorrow,” Dylan agrees, and gives Connor another crazy two-handed wave. Connor halfheartedly waves back. 

He stays in his own room that night, despite his mom’s invitation to sleep in their room. He lays awake in his bed, still dressed in that idiotic orange sweater, unable to sleep. Somewhere around three am he texts Dylan and asks him to meet him down by the pool. 

Dylan is sleepy-eyed and barefoot when he appears twenty minutes later and sits in the lounger next to Connor. “Sup?” he asks.  
Connor takes a deep breath and stares out at the rippling, illuminated pool. “I think we have to break up,” he says to the pool.  
In the corner of his eye, he can see Dylan’s devastated face, the corners of his mouth turned down, tears sparkling at the edges of those thoughtful brown eyes. He wants to rescind and wrap Dylan up in a hug, but instead he sits own his hands. “Why?” Dylan asks, and, sure enough, his voice is thick with tears.  
“I just think it’s better that way, you know? We’re gonna be so far away and it’s going to be so hard and I think I just need some time to adjust.”  
It’s Dylan’s turn to stare out at the pool. Connor can see the tears dribbling down his face and he wants desperately to relent, but he knows he can’t. Knows he’s making the right decision. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I love you.”  
“No you don’t,” Dylan says, getting up out of the chair and walking out. 

From then on the only see each other in a professional capacity. Connor’s summer is so consumed by this whole…transition to the NHL that he’s able to distract himself from thinking about it too much. He misses Dylan in the quiet moments, the times where they would’ve been sitting close, watching everyone else, laughing at their own private jokes. He misses Dylan in the times where he’s alone and he wishes they could be sitting together, Dylan curled up in his arms, Sportsnet on TV. He misses Dylan every second that he stops to think about it, so he chooses not to stop to think about it. He lets Connor McDavid, Hockey Player take over where Connor McDavid, Actual Human used to be. 

It isn’t long after the season starts that he finds out that Dylan has a girlfriend—he sees it on Instagram. She’s pretty enough, and Dylan actually smiles in pictures with her, which is nice, Connor supposes. He has a nice smile. But it gives Connor a strange little pang of regret. If he hadn’t been such a dumb asshole, he wouldn’t be alone up in a place where there’s currently snowdrifts taller than he is, and Dylan wouldn’t have a pretty girlfriend who gets him to smile in photos. But maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be, he thinks. Maybe whatever he and Dylan had was too complicated and precious to last—all good things must come to an end, and that. Maybe one day he’ll find something equally as wonderful and precious as what he had with Dylan, but without all the complications. Maybe one day he’ll find a boy who makes him smile in their Instagrams, and maybe one day he’ll stop dreaming of Dylan at night and waking up in the morning with tears in his eyes. Until then, he does what he knows how to do best: he plays hockey, he scores a lot, and he forgets that there’s ever been anything more important in his life than that. He thinks that perhaps that's what growing up entails--putting away the parts of yourself that make life difficult and focusing on the ones that don't. If that's what growing up is, he's the most grown up 18 year old there ever has been. 

A few days before Christmas, he finally texts Dylan, tells him that he's been playing great (he has) and that he looks really happy with his new girlfriend (he does). It's a reserved text, no emojis, no exclamation points, none of the flavour of the endless texts between them that preceded it, but it's a shyly extended olive branch, the best Connor can do. To his surprise, Dylan texts back a paragraph about settling into Phoenix, about life there, funny anecdotes about his teammates, and a little about the girlfriend--Sarah. And at the end: "I miss you. I hope you're doing okay." 

It takes him a long time to respond, and when he does, he's honest. He's okay, he likes Edmonton, it's really cold, but he likes his teammates and he likes playing with them. He talks about all the stupid things Hall does, talks about Ben Scrivens' ridiculous dog and his plan to kidnap him, talks about how awesome it is to be contributing and to see the team doing well. But he's honest. He tells him how hard it is to be away from everyone, how alone he feels, how much he misses having companionship, how scared he is about finding companionship when he doesn't even knows where to start looking. And at the end: "I miss you too. Thanks for texting back." 

They go back and forth a little while longer, agreeing that they'll hang out next time they're in one another's cities. It makes Connor's chest ache, but it's almost a nice ache. If there is nothing else, their friendship is the same as it ever was. That is entirely comforting in its own way. When Dylan comes to Edmonton on New Years Day, Connor shows him around and they have dinner together. At the end of the night, Connor says, "I'm sorry," looking down at his feet.  
"Hey." Dylan picks his chin up with his hand, makes him look at him. "I forgave you a long time ago. You were scared. And it turned out that even though I really did love you, my life was going to go in a different direction anyway and I think one way or the other we would have ended up here."  
Connor nods, trying to keep eye contact and also trying his hardest not to cry, and Dylan continues, "but Conn, don't get so busy trying to...do whatever that you let the right person for you walk out of your life, okay? Don't make me be your wingman. Because I will be your wingman."  
_There's a scary thought_ , Connor thinks, and smiles in spite of himself, reaching to hug Dylan, who, surprisingly, accepts. "I won't. Your taste in guys _sucks_ ," he says, and then they're both laughing. Maybe, just maybe, it will be all okay after all. 

Johnny Gaudreau comes out in January. The world doesn't end, the game doesn't change, and life goes on as usual. Somehow Connor ends up with his phone number, works up the nerve to call him shortly after he turns 19. To his great surprise, that initial phone call isn't awkward at all. They talk for hours about what it's like to be a gay hockey player, what it's like to be so visible when you're shy, about anxiety, about books and film and music and everything they can think of. They talk on the phone almost every night after that, and when they both have a day off between home games in February, Connor works up the nerve to ask Johnny out for dinner. 

Johnny is as easy to talk to in person as he is on the phone and through text, and Connor doesn't stop smiling the entire night. When Johnny holds out his hand as they walk back to Johnny's hotel, Connor accepts without thinking twice about it. When Johnny leans in and kisses Connor goodnight, kissing him back is the most natural thing in the world, and wouldn't you know--this time, there are fireworks. Connor smiles the whole way home. 

The Coyotes and the Flames just barely don't make the playoffs. The Oilers do, but they lose in six in the second round. Nonetheless, Johnny and Dylan throw him a big party when his season is over. It's part playoff celebration and part rite of passage: here's the a crazy year in the life of Connor McDavid. 

At the end of the night they all take a selfie: Sarah and Dylan smiling goofily at each other, Johnny kissing Connor's cheek and Connor in the middle with a stupid hat on his head, _beaming_. When he gets home in the morning, Connor prints it out and frames it so he can carry it with him wherever he goes. As it turns out, he was wrong the whole time: growing up isn't throwing yourself away at all. It's about weathering the storms in order to find out where you're supposed to be, and where Connor is supposed to be is right here: with his best friend and his boyfriend, with his career on a roll and his whole life ahead of him. 

Downstairs, Johnny's yelling at him to hurry up or they're going to miss their flight to Boston. Connor takes a long last look at the picture before shoving it in his suitcase, bounding down the stairs two at a time. For once in his life, he can't wait to see what lies ahead. It's not the life he thought he'd have, not the life he thought he'd wanted, but right then, he doesn't want to change it for anything. 


End file.
